The plan for finally widening the N-332 main road has taken another step forward this week, with hope that the project will be completed by 2020.

The Official State Gazette (BOE) was published on Wednesday, announcing the tender for the drafting of the project for the design and execution of the road widening scheme. Within the tender document is a requirement for the project to be delivered within 18 months, and with the 40 million euro budget allocation.

After approving the project, the contest to award the works must be opened within two years. The Ministry confirms that the planned investment in the execution will be 40 million euro and that all the procedures must prepare to “accumulate the delay generated by the rejection of the Generalitat at the time of writing the project”. What that means is that so long as the project is not paralysed by such things as the environmental impact study and, if all goes well, the contracting and execution of the widening could be a reality, with an optimistic calculation, in the first half of 2020.

Having been overdue by more than a decade, and the subject of political point scoring over actual action, the N-332 as it passes through Torrevieja is the scene of frequent traffic jams, holdups and incidents, far exceeding the amount of traffic that a road of the current state should normally carry, exceeding 50,000 vehicles per day at peak season times.

As well as widening the N-332 itself, the plan will also include improvements to the roads which lead to it so that these roads also fall within the technical requirements for road planning.